


Nothing's Left Unturned

by compos_dementis



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Asexual Sherlock, Asperger's Sherlock, Autistic Sherlock, M/M, Magical Realism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-30
Updated: 2014-01-31
Packaged: 2018-01-10 14:38:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1160864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/compos_dementis/pseuds/compos_dementis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A universe where everyone is born with numbers on their wrists counting down to when they'll meet their soul mate. Sherlock Holmes does not believe in soul mates. Or rather, he hadn't until his timer began to count down closer and closer to zero.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt on tumblr, found on my roleplay account: "In a universe where everyone is born with numbers on their wrists counting down to when they’ll meet their soul mate, send me 00:00:00 for my muse's reaction to their numbers hitting zero when they meet yours." My muse was Sherlock (notquiteasociopath). Their muse was John (complisult).

Sherlock Holmes does not believe in soul mates.

Or rather, he hadn’t until the timer on his wrist began to count down closer and closer to zero. Sherlock doesn’t need a soul mate, he rationalizes. He’s practically mechanic in that sense; he’s never had a need nor a desire for companionship. There had been Victor, in the past, whose timer had hit zero the day they met; and yet Sherlock’s had kept tick-tick-ticking away, like a countdown to his own demise.

Perhaps that’s what it is, he tells himself. Perhaps his own counter is one to his death. It wouldn’t make sense any other way. 

He wears long sleeves partially to hide the timer — he can’t bear to look at it. Out of sight, out of mind.

At twenty minutes, Sherlock is in the mortuary of St. Bart’s, fiercely whipping a corpse in order to monitor the formation of bruises after death. Molly offers to make him coffee. She is not his soul mate.

At ten minutes, Sherlock is sitting in one of the labs, trying and failing to get his phone to pick up a signal. A woman comes in to retrieve a forgotten file. She is not his soul mate.

He grows increasingly more frustrated as the numbers decline. What if he finds his supposed ‘soul mate’ to be utterly dull? Half of him expects one of the light fixtures to fall and hit him, preventing any sort of fated meeting — the other half of him wishes for it. He wouldn’t be able to stand anyone tedious or boring. He needs someone who can keep up with him. Someone who won’t mind a bit of adventure.

Victor had been a pleasant enough candidate, but he’d been so— so painfully polite, so stupidly shy. Sherlock had cared for him, yes, but not in the way Victor wanted. Not in the way either of them wanted.

Sherlock hasn’t met anyone else that’s piqued his interest. He doesn’t have friends, he barely has family, no one in the world is going to be able to capture his attention long enough to be considered an eligible soul mate.

At five minutes, Sherlock is tapping his pinky finger against the tabletop.

At two minutes, he goes back to his phone.

At thirty seconds, he is watching the door, and at three seconds, Stamford walks into the room. At first, Sherlock is baffled, and more than a bit appalled, but then Stamford is followed by someone, a small man with a cane and a limp, a suntan that clearly says he’s been abroad, a stance which reads military.

_This is him_ , Sherlock tells himself. _This is the man I’m destined to spend my life with_.

And he doesn’t mind, really, that it’s a man. Sherlock’s never been interested in the gender aspect of these things; the sexual component would either be entirely void, or would come much, much later. Sherlock swallows, and he’s nervous, god he’s nervous, he’s trying to put on a cheerful air.

“Mike, can I borrow your phone? No signal on mine.”

John Watson offers his mobile — good. Sherlock takes it. Alcoholic brother, recently divorced. A nice phone, too nice for the man standing beside him. Sherlock finds himself swallowing again, and, more confidently than he truly feels, asks:

“Afghanistan or Iraq?”

The stranger’s eyebrows raise, but when he looks down, confused, toward his own timer, his gaze lifts to Sherlock again, and they stand staring at each other for a moment. 

”I— sorry, what?”

”I said, Afghanistan or Iraq?”

The tension is wrung from the air, and suddenly, brilliantly, John Watson, ex-soldier with the psychosomatic limp and the drunk brother, smiles.


	2. Chapter 2

There is a philosophical text, dating back to ancient Greece, which states that humans originally had four arms, four legs, and a single head of two faces. According to this text, there were three genders: man, woman, and androgynous, each of them children of the sun, the earth, and the moon, respectively. When the humans threatened to conquer the gods, Zeus developed a solution by splitting these humans in two as punishment.

The split humans were bitter and miserable, refusing to eat, threatening to let themselves perish, and they forever longed for that other half of themselves, that other half of their own soul. It was said that when the two found one another, there would be an unspoken understanding, a unification of the spirit, and would know no greater joy than the simple pleasure of lying with one another in unity.

John tells him this over dinner the night that Jeffrey Hope, terminally ill cab driver, is murdered. Sherlock's nerves, despite all that had just happened, are oddly calm as he listens to John speak of dead philosophers and ancient words that don't apply to either of them. Sherlock doesn't believe a word of it, naturally, but he listens regardless because John saved his life tonight, and it's the least he can do to allow John to feed him and talk nonsense to him over hot noodles and orange chicken.

"You don't honestly believe that, do you?" Sherlock asks, bringing a piece of chicken to his lips, held firmly between two chopsticks.

John shakes his head. "God, no, I-- no. Just thought it was interesting. If it really worked out like that, well, everyone would have a countdown, wouldn't they? And not everyone does. Some people are born with it at zero, you know. Rare, but I've seen it happen."

"Mm." It's a small and noncommittal noise. Sherlock thinks of the cabbie lying under the heel of his shoe, that terrible wet gasp of pain. He thinks of Hope's children. He thinks of his ex-wife.

He thinks of the bullet that tore through him, and thinks of John's steady hands.

There's a somewhat uncomfortable silence between them, broken only by the soft music over the speakers of the restaurant and the mindless chatter of the other customers. The clink of a metal against ceramic sounds from somewhere over to his left, where a small child is tapping their fork against their plate, and Sherlock's eyes zero in on the girl's own timer, perfectly functioning, counting away in silence.

Instinctively, his eyes drift back to his own. Steady at zero, as of that morning-- and John's looking at him now, watching him, and Sherlock sharply meets his gaze.

"Everything okay?" John asks, and the air of discomfort that had been present at Angelo's is gone now. Is John satisfied, finally, with the arrangement? Clearly he'll take the bedroom at the flat, share in the rent; but is he comfortable in knowing that his soul mate, the person he's meant to spend the rest of his life with, is a man?

_(Of course we'll be needing two bedrooms.)_

On the one hand, Sherlock is grateful for the physical distance; he's never been a very tactile creature, and whatever agreement they're going to come to about this soul mate thing, Sherlock would prefer it not to include sex. On the other hand, he wonders if he should be offended at John's blatant homophobia, denying left and right that they're a couple when, on some level, they clearly are, or will be.

"Fine." Sherlock's response is clipped even when he doesn't mean it to be. He thinks back to the cabbie again, thinks about Moriarty, whatever the hell that is, thinks about John.

"You killed for me tonight," he says lowly, his voice soft enough that he knows John has to strain to hear him over the clatter of the crowd.

They've had this conversation, sort of, already. They had it back amidst the swarm of policemen. Now that they're alone, or close to it, the question hangs heavy in the air. John is the first to break eye contact, which is unsurprising and predictable; his eyes flick down to his mostly empty plate and his hands are sure and confident against the table.

"Yeah," John replies, and then says, "well," and then it's like he's bottled up, like he doesn't know what to do with himself. Sherlock watches him struggle to reply. "You would have died, if I hadn't."

"I had the situation under control--"

"Bollocks. You couldn't have known. Hell, for all you know, he could have been pulling a bloody Princess Bride on you, and I'd not have gotten to you in time."

Sherlock's eyebrows knit. "Princess Bride?"

"The movie. You know, with Cary Elwes?" When Sherlock doesn't respond verbally, instead just narrowing his eyes and wondering if John is making fun of him, John just shakes his head. "Forget about it. The point is, I'd have felt-- responsible, all right, if you'd died."

Another pause before John pushes on, "I've seen men die before. Good men. My friends, even, and I don't..." His mouth pulls into a firm line. "I don't want to lose you, too."

The bare honesty of the statement causes a warmth, originating somewhere in the pit of his stomach and spreading outward, engulfing him. Is he blushing? He hopes he isn't blushing. It's stupid to be moved by something as simple as newfound friendship. It isn't like he's never had friends before, after all. They're simply-- well. Few and far between. There had been Redbeard, and Victor, and then Sherlock had been prepared to give up on friendship entirely. Yet the simple satisfaction of John's company, John's blunt truthfulness, is refreshingly new, welcomed with open arms.

Sherlock is having difficulty speaking, or in fact, thinking of anything to say at all. His heart is sitting heavily in his throat, and he feels oddly exposed and warm, too warm. He opens his mouth to speak, and for a moment, nothing comes out. Finally he manages, “You don’t even know me, John.”

And John, deceptively normal-looking John Watson, shrugs a shoulder. “I’ve seen men killed for a lot less.” Sherlock wonders if John had been the one pulling the trigger those other times, as well, in the name of protecting his friends. It’s difficult to imagine, even after tonight’s events. “Are you really so surprised that someone out there wants to protect you?”

“Yes.”

Sherlock’s own response comes automatically. He pauses, considering what he’d said, and John pauses too, and this is a much more intimate conversation than he’d anticipated. He feels like he’s laying himself bare to criticism, which is frankly ridiculous, and John’s gaze has gone very soft and very sad. “Sherlock—“

“It’s fine,” Sherlock insists. And it is, it’s fine, it’s more than fine. The fact that John is already so fiercely protective of him says a lot about their partnership. (And it is, already, a partnership. One doesn’t kill for someone without some sort of bond being formed.)

He pushes the remnants of his chow mein about his plate, suddenly no longer hungry. The post-case bliss that usually accompanies a solution is still there, but his own need for food has dissipated, replaced by this uncomfortable silence that makes him want to shrink away, unseen. He can feel John staring at him, and when he finally looks up again, John averts his gaze.

He isn't aware of how much time passes before John rubs a hand over his tired face, clearing his throat. "Right. Well, let's, erm. Let's pay the bill and head-- head home. Yeah?"

Saying anything would feel wrong right about now, so instead, Sherlock nods.


End file.
